


Power in Threes

by cadkitten



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Dreams, M/M, Magic, Multi, Reincarnation, Romance, dream things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 09:27:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17826158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadkitten/pseuds/cadkitten
Summary: It isn't like anything else he's ever done. Perhaps it's close to what had to be done to resurrect Gansey, but it isn't that either. It isn't like wishing a dream object into being and it certainly isn't like reaching into the inky blackness of his nightmares and hoping to pull something free that isn't filled with all the horrors his mind could possibly supply.





	Power in Threes

**Author's Note:**

> After The Raven King, before Opal. (I haven't read Opal yet.)

It isn't like anything else he's ever done. Perhaps it's close to what had to be done to resurrect Gansey, but it isn't that either. It isn't like wishing a dream object into being and it certainly isn't like reaching into the inky blackness of his nightmares and hoping to pull something free that isn't filled with all the horrors his mind could possibly supply. 

Ronan is filled with loss, with regret, with _hope_. He's seen what they can do together. He's watched Cabeswater be unmade and seen the horror of his mother being unmade. He's _been_ unmade. 

It's a thing he holds deep in the darkness inside him. The sensation of being pulled apart and melted and whisked away into nothingness, the feeling of knowing he's causing the entire world to rip itself apart, the streets to run with blood. He remembers the dream objects he created there with a certainty he recalls of little else.

He sits in the newness of his dream landscape and he feels Adam's breath beside him here, despite the distance between them. He feels Blue's reflection despite how far away Gansey and Henry and her are from where Ronan presently resides. He feels Opal's small hand in his own, hears her quiet plea of her special name for him. Chainsaw sits in his lap, absently pecking at the hem of his pants. 

Ronan takes a breath and he _asks_. Just the same as he did for Gansey, he asks for Noah. He asks for what Noah _had been_ rather than what he'd become. He wants to take away the pain and the reliving of his own death and he wants to give Noah the life he'd never been permitted to live. His free hand rests on Noah's grave: he feels like he can feel Noah's entire life through the soil between them.

He's both here and not; both between this world and his dream world. He inhales and he feels the world come full-stop around him. He feels the pause in Blue's steps, he feels Adam's held breath as much as his own. He feels his dream world heave and pitch and the clutch of Opal's hand tight around his own. Chainsaw is perfectly still in his lap.

The world heaves around him and his dream world relaxes. Ronan opens his eyes and meets Noah's curious gaze. He is, perhaps, something between what he was before Ronan knew him and what he was after they met. He is the rumpled, easily passed over boy, but he is also _Noah_ rather than the ghost of Noah. 

Ronan has created from a place of love, birthed the truth of another through the pathways of memory and dream. Noah leans in, his breath ghosting over Ronan's lips and even as they touch, Ronan recalls Adam, thinks on what he'll think, if he'll be angry, if he won't understand. He has no desire to break Adam; he never has. Still... his lips press to Noah's and it's as simple as breathing. It's not electric or earth shattering, it's not carrying his heart away and it's not frantic like it has always been with Adam. It just _is_. It feels correct and so it is correct. It feels necessary and so it happens.

Ronan's phone vibrates on the grass beside him and Opal's hand tugs free of his own to retrieve it. She answers it without speaking and holds it out to Ronan, giving him little choice in the matter. 

Ronan presses it to his ear and he hears Adam's breath across the line. He _knows_ it's Adam. He'd know him from any part of him, from anywhere, given any time. 

"They say it's always better to be three."

Ronan's heart unclenches, his shoulders ease, his fears melt away and Noah's closeness doesn't bring with it the fears of what he's done. Noah slides onto his lap, Chainsaw flapping out of the way at the last possible second, and Ronan breathes a sigh of relief. 

"Tell him I said I'm glad he's back... and," there's a huff of a laugh, "thanks for evening it out." There's absurdity to the statement. There's nothing even about three, but it makes some absurd amount of sense given he's come to understand why it was Gansey and Blue and _Henry_ wandering the world together. He knows Adam understands as much as he does that there's power in threes. He knows Adam's heard it from all the same places Ronan has. 

He hangs up the phone and watches Noah, sees the smile curve his lips, and this time when Noah's mouth meets his, he lets himself feel.


End file.
